


We are the Most Interesting Book of All

by serannes



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Historical RPF, The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff
Genre: 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Diary/Journal, Gen, Historical, No Plot/Plotless, RPF, Teenage Drama, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24255427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serannes/pseuds/serannes
Summary: Snippets from the bestselling diary of 19th-century French painter and infamous teenaged diva, Marie Bashkirtseff (1858—1884). Except it's the His Dark Materials universe and everyone has daemons.
Kudos: 2





	We are the Most Interesting Book of All

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF (From Childhood to Girlhood)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/621976) by Marie Bashkirtseff (trans. Mary J. Safford). 



> Some context: Marie was arguably one of the first 'teenagers' as we know them today, and she left behind a really lengthy diary about her adolescence. It's a fairly seminal work if you're a youth historian. Cue me thinking about how important puberty is in the world of HDM, and also how Marie's experiences would be different if she had a daemon to share her adolescence with.
> 
> This is less a piece of fanfiction clear than a weird, undefinably transformative work, in that I just took chunks of text from her diary and edited in daemons and other stuff from the HDM universe. Text is taken from the Mary J. Safford translation (1912), which is by no means a complete version but can be found online here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13916/13916-h/13916-h.htm. (This fic/thing takes place at the beginning of her journaling, in 1873 when she is twelve. Also, Marie has a habit of rescinding the names of the people about whom she is talking, which I've kept, i.e. Duc de H——)

**January, 1873**

I must tell you that ever since Baden I have thought of nothing except the Duc de H——. I never dreamed I could be so enchanted by a man in Magisterium robes! In the afternoon I studied. I did not go out except for half an hour on the terrace. I am very unhappy to-day, and Magritte has given me a headache with her constant shifting. We are in a terrible state of mind, and out of patience with one another; if this keeps on, I don't know what will become of me.

How fortunate people who have no secrets are! Or those who are full grown and need not fear their young daemon’s shifting into a shape that will leak all one’s hidden truths!

Oh, God, in mercy save me!

The face makes very little difference! People can't love just on account of the face. Of course it does a great deal, but when there is nothing else—. Far better those who have daemons that they cannot conceal. They have been talking about B——. He has exactly my disposition. I am fond of society; he likes to flirt; he likes to see and to be seen; in short, he is pleased with the same things that please me. His Cecile is a polecat. They say he is a gambler. Oh! dear! What evil genius has changed him!

Perhaps he is in love—hopelessly?

Happy love ought to make us better, but hopeless love! Oh, I believe it must be that!

No, no, he is simply dragged down like so many young men by that terrible gulf. Oh, what an accursed place! How many wretched beings it has made! Oh, fly from it! Take your sons, your husbands, your brothers away from there, or they are lost. B—— is beginning. The Duc de H—— has begun, too, for all his service to the Magisterium—and he will go on, while he might live happily. Live and be useful to society. But he spends his time with wicked men and women. He can do it as long as he has anything, and he used to be immensely rich.

Dr. V—— has said that my governess Mademoiselle C—— is ill, that she may live five years or die in three weeks, because she is consumptive. How many misfortunes at once!

If, when I am grown up, I should marry B—— what a life it would be! To stay all alone, that is, surrounded by commonplace men, who will want to flirt with me, and be carried away by the whirl of pleasure. I dream of and wish for all these things, but with a husband I love and who loves me—. And Magritte should have a velvet cushion and eat fresh salmon for breakfast.

Ah, who would suppose it was little Marie, a girl scarcely twelve years old, whose daemon still shifts with each passing minute; who feels all this! But what am I saying? What a dismal thought! I don't even know him, and am already marrying him—how silly I am!

I am really much vexed about all this. Gritte has mellowed, I am calmer now. My handwriting shows it. The spontaneous burst of indignation is a little quieted. It is soothing to write or communicate one's ideas to somebody who is not a part of oneself.

B—— isn't worth while. I shall never marry him. If he begs me on his knees, I shall be—oh, I forgot the word—I shall be firm. No, that isn't the word, but I know what I mean. Yet if he loves me very much, very deeply, if he cannot live without me—vain phrases! Gritte, be our strength; do not let us meet. I don't wish to be weak.

We are firm, we will be resolute. I mean to have the Duc de H——. I love him at least. His dissipated life may be forgiven him. But the other—no!

While writing I was interrupted by a noise. I thought some one was going to surprise me. Gritte startled from her doze and almost knocked over the ink pot. Even if what I have written were not seen, I should blush all the same. Everything I wrote previously now seems nonsense. Yet it is really exactly what I felt. I am calm now. Later I will read it over again. That will bring back the past.

I love the Duc de H—— and I cannot tell him so. Even if I did, he would pay no attention to it. O, God! I pray Thee! When he was here, I had an object in going out, in dressing, in grooming Gritte’s fur and arranging my hair. But now! I went to the terrace hoping to see him in the distance for at least a second.

O God, relieve my suffering! I can pray to Thee no more. Hear my petition. Thy mercy is so infinite. Thy grace is so great, Thou hast done so many things for me! Thou hast bestowed so many blessings upon me. Thou hast given me my own self in Magritte, and save us from lives of sin—oh! Thou alone canst inspire him with love for me!

Oh, dear! I imagine him dead, and that nothing can draw him nearer to me. What a terrible thought! I have tears in my eyes, and still more in my heart. I am weeping. To think of him lying cold, with no Amelie tucked in her customary station within his coat. If I did not love him I might console myself. He would suit me for a husband in every respect. I love him, and that is what makes me suffer. Take away this anguish, and I shall be a thousand times more miserable. My grief makes my happiness. I live solely for that. All my thoughts, everything is centred there. The Duc de H—— is my all. I love him so much! It is a very old-fashioned phrase, since people no longer love. Women love men for money, and men love women because they are the fashion or on account of their surroundings. He is really too charming to work for the Magesterium! Gritte mocks me, a little.

We have spent long nights talking it over in our bed, and yet I could not say, "On such or such a day I met a young man whom I liked." I do not know when I noticed him. I cannot even understand these feelings, I cannot find expressions. I will only say, "I do not know when, I do not know how this love has come. It came because it probably had to come." I should like to define this, yet I cannot.

Now, if he were paying me attention, he would think he was doing me honour, but then I should make him see that it is I who honour him by marrying him, because I am giving up all my glory. To be the wife of a Cleric! Yet what happiness can be greater: To have everything—to be a child worshipped by its parents, petted, having all a child can have. Then to be known, admired, sought by the whole world, and have glory and triumph every time one sings. And at last to become a duchess, and to have the duke whom I have loved a long while, and be received and admired by everybody. To be rich on my own account and through my husband; to be able to say that I am not a plebeian by birth, like all the celebrities—that is the life, that is the happiness I desire. If I can become his wife without being a cantatrice, I shall be equally well pleased, but I believe that is the only way I shall be able to attract him.

Oh, if that could be! My God! Thou hast made us find in what way we shall be able to obtain what I ask. Oh! Lord! Aid us, I place all my hopes in Thee. Thou alone canst do all things, canst render me happy. Thou hast made me understand that it is through my voice I can obtain what I seek. Then it is upon my voice that I must fix all my thoughts, I must cultivate, watch, and guard it. I swear to Thee, O Lord, no longer to sing or scream as I used to do.

On leaving the H——'s, I was wrapped in an ermine cloak, and Gritte wrapped herself if ermine fur around my neck. I thought I looked very well. If I became a duchess, a cloak like that would suit me. Perhaps Gritte could be a pure-white snow fox, and sit elegant by my side. I am growing too presumptuous. Because I put on an ermine cloak, I imagine that I am a queen.

Monday, our day. We have plenty of callers. I went in only a minute to ask Mamma something, in my character of a little girl. Before entering I looked at myself in the mirror hanging there: I was good-looking, rosy, fair, pretty.

Suppose I should write everything I think and everything I intend to do when I grow up, everything I mean to forget, and everything that is extraordinary? A dinner service of transparent glass. On one side a certain costume and arrangement of the hair, and creature sat beside me; on the other side a different costume and a different arrangement of the hair and a differently shaped daemon, so that on one side we shall be one person, and on the other side another. We shall look so grand when we are grown and settled! To give a dinner by letters. I have determined to end this book, for extravagant ideas rarely come to me in these days.

#### March 14th, 1873.

I saw Madame V—— on the Promenade. If I am committed to writing this book, then I suppose I must describe her. She is short and plump, with large jewels around her neck, and her daemon is a dog, which I think quite suits her. He is sleek and altogether servile. She once lived in Geneva and still hosts salons for Clerics of the Magisterium. I was so glad, not on her own account—yes, a little, but because all these people remind me of Baden.

There I could see the Duc, because he spent nearly all his time out of doors, but it did me no good, for I was a child. If I could be at Baden _now_ for a summer! O, dear! When I think that Grandpapa made his acquaintance in a shop. If I could have foreseen, I should have continued that acquaintance.

I think only of him, Gritte and I pray God to keep every trouble from him, protect, preserve him from every danger.

All this time people talk about the Duc de H—— and it pleases me immensely, if I don't blush, and hide my face in Gritte’s fur.

At last we can enjoy some bright weather on the Promenade. We have seen everybody, and we are happy. An hour driving, then walking, but the rain surprised us.

In the evening we went to the theatre, which was filled with fashionable people. The W——'s were next to us. I talked about the springs, horses, etc. Gritte was a butterfly in my hair and I flatter myself that I looked charming. To-day I have been reflecting. Not a moment must be lost, every instant must be spent in study. Sometimes (I am ashamed to confess it) I hurry through my lessons without understanding them, in order to finish more quickly, while Gritte presses her nose against the window or plays with pens in the corner. I am glad when lessons are given me to review because, during the following days, I shall have less to do.

I don't intend to behave so any longer. We have determined that we must finish what we are learning quickly, that we may begin serious studies, like those of men, and I will occupy myself more with music, commence lessons on the harp and singing. These are great plans. They are sensible ones, too. Are they not?

#### March 26th, 1873.

I have realised that I have not yet given a description of ourselves, for all that I spend hours upon hours staring into a mirror and scrutinising every inch of skin, each hair out of place. I suppose this journal is a mirror of sorts. Though Gritte cannot write, so I must write for the both of us.

I am still young, and charming, I am told, and find it easy to believe. That is not to say I am perfect—no, I can see the ways in which I shall improve, must improve myself before I can become a star above all others. I brush my curls a thousand times before I go to bed. My curls are one of my greatest assets, and I am determined to preserve them. I am also proud of my nose, which is a button, and my pink bow lips. I practice walking to correct my posture up and down my room each afternoon, and Gritte either walks prettily by my side as a cat or a greyhound, or sits on my head to teach me to balance. I prefer it when she walks with me, as I am afraid she will crush my ringlets, but we both agree it is a necessary evil and must be done and practiced when I am still young and in private, with no-one to impress. Sometimes she takes the form of a little flying thing, a robin or a speckled moth, and flies around my head and critiques my posture. It would be vexing did I not love her so. Each night I pray to God to make us beautiful.

Overall we feel we are shaping up very nicely. Though I am still young, only twelve, I feel sure that Gritte shall soon settle. She already spends much of her time in a single form, and Mademoiselle C—— says that that is the final step before settling, and that it might happen any day now. It is unusual, granted, but we are very mature already. I know we are special.

We often spend our nights talking about what Gritte will settle as. We when were younger I wished for a tiger, of the sort that Monsieur F—— described when he came back from India. How awe-some we should have been! Gritte thought she would like to be a dove, and I was ready to be won—how perfectly poetic, to have a songbird as my daemon!—but she was scared out of that form when we visited my cousins at D—— and my vile cousin Rene set his sparrowhawk daemon on her. Rene is some ten years older than us; he was eighteen at the time, I think, and his Lucie had only just settled. I should be ashamed if I were eighteen and still a child! Why, I plan to be married by that time! Should God heed our prayers, and the Duc de H—— notice yours truly…

Recently, however, Gritte has spent more and more time as a cat—a snow-white cat, with silken paws and a charming pink nose, quite as sweet as mine. Not a blemish on her! We think she looks very mode. We make a pretty picture together in the mirror, and I would not mind if she settled in this form once and for all.

Every night when we go to sleep, I make my prayers to God that He will soon grant us that worthiest of all gifts, to be admitted into the company of the adults’ salon. Before we are too old, please! I don’t ever wish to grow old. I shall die when I am young and beautiful. But can you not picture us there?—myself, sitting prettily in the middle of the salon, while young gallants cluster around and pay their homage under Mama’s watchful eye, and Gritte curled on a red velvet cushion by my side. If only the Duc de H—— numbered among that company—oh, my happiness would be complete!

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone interested in Marie Bashkirtseff as one of the first modern teenagers should check out her diary, or for a briefer overview, the first chapters of the book Teenage by Jon Savage: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/652609.Teenage
> 
> Not that there's a plot to this or anything, but I might add to this at some point.


End file.
